Many types of body injuries are easily treatable with specialized equipments which are adapted to various body parts, such as shoulders, wrists, knees, etc. The type of injury, the frequency and the duration of treatment influence the conditions under which a selected treatment must be conducted to heal, soothe discomforts or protect a sensitive area of the body.
The Merck Manual of Medical Information states that the immediate treatment of certain types of injuries such as sprains requires Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation (RICE). Although Rest and Elevation can be attained without any special tool or apparatus, the cold treatment (Ice) and Compression aspect are usually obtained by the use of devices.
Several methods are known to obtain a cold bandage. The first of these is a cold compress made of 2 separate chemical reactants kept apart by 2 polyethylene chambers contained within a polyethylene pouch. By rupturing the chambers within the pouch, the 2 chemical components come into contact of each other creating an endothermic reaction requiring the absorption of heat from it's immediate environment, in this case the injured person. This process however has limited efficacy since the endothermic reaction is not energetically efficient enough to create a cold pouch of reasonable size to be ergonomically feasible within a single pouch. This system requires the use of more than one pouch for one injury. Other drawbacks include the fact that the chemical reaction is not reversible thereby eliminating the possibility of regenerating the pouch so that as a throw-away item it becomes economically and environmentally unfeasible to ergonomically design the pouch for comfort and maximum contact to the injured part. Thus the compression aspect of RICE is not attained efficiently.
A second system exists which though more efficient for the cold and compression aspects of RICE are not as mobile as the previous methods. They are ergonomically designed bandages that contain gels and other substances within pouches that require freezing. They can retain their coldness for a limited amount of time and eventually returning to room temperature. This means that the access to a freezer appliance, whether portable or fixed, is required and therefore greatly reduces practicality and mobility.
Another known system includes a mechanism that circulates cold water within a bandage. This system is also large and of limited mobility. There also exist some bandages that are cooled a little below room temperature through evaporative cooling which have limited therapeutic value in regard to cold treatment.
There is therefore a need for a bandage which efficiently incorporates the benefits associated with the use of the temperature therapy in the healing process of injured body parts.
There is also a need for bandage cooling apparatus which is portable, compact, reusable and easy to carry.